Brain surfing

[Raven]

Kailen looked at the pictures, but then picked up the remote and pushed one of the arrows.

[Gifted]

The whole room began to move back, suddenly but silently. In almost no time at all it had stopped and one of the doors flew open, leading to what he could see threw the doorway was a much darker room.

[Raven]

Kailen walked into the second room rather slowly, looking around.

[Gifted]

The place looked like a seedy bar, one where people went if they didn't want to be noticed. Faceless waitresses strutted around in slutty clothing flirting with men. Stephanie, dressed none too modestly herself, was sitting with a man in dark clothing having a conversation, and there were what looked like very important documents on the table. She wore a devious smile, like someone who knew she was about to get away with murder.
Then, all at once, the people were gone. Behind the bar, the display of alcohol bottles had been replaced with another intricately ordered bookshelf. This one still had many respectable faces on it, but there were also not-so respectable ones, connected to each other and to the respectable ones in some intricately interrelated pattern that an outsider couldn't understand.

[Raven]

Having had a small taste of what Stephanie's connection web had been like, Kailen guessed they were probably contacts, though he could only guess that the strings meant relationships between them. Kailen looked around a moment more before pressing the arrow again.

[Gifted]

Again, the room was moved backwards, and another was moved to the front. This one was a pretty and normal room, but was filled with people when Kailen first walked in. They were holding signs praising her, awards and more mundane gifts, all looking incredibly happy and excited to see her. Stephanie walked among them, graciously accepting gifts, praise, and affection. the crowd was completely taken with her. Ad then all of it was gone, leaving the gifts and signs and awards on the ground.

[Raven]

Kailen frowned, moving on again.

[Gifted]

Another room was set up with everything being just slightly too big. a desk was elevated by some stairs above where Kailen was standing, and there were plaques commemorating others along the walls. These ones were much easier than other pictures to decipher: They built in rank as Kailen went up in the room. Even then, though, there were the occasional small pictures of thugs interspersed between them. All the pictures of shadier en and women were intact, and most of the others were too, but a few of the pictures had cracked glass. This room only had two actual people in it, both standing right near the top. Stephanie stood upon the last plateau before the highest point in the room where the desk sat looking up at it. The man who sat up there stood up from his desk. It was the current president, and he shook hands warmly with Stephanie, Stephanie inclining her head in respect, apparently wishing each other luck in the mutual battle to win the top spot. But as the President turned around to go back to his seat, there was a target painted on his back, and hidden in Stephanie's back pocket was a shining silver knife.
Then the pair were gone, and all that was left was the long room and the photographs.

[Raven]

Kailen turned and walked back down, now inspecting the remote instead of the room. Was he actually getting anywhere with this? He pressed the other arrow. He found himself back in the room with signs, then in the bar, and finally back in Stephanie's office, and he pressed it again. If this thing was linear, this would be the shortcut taking him to the end.

[Gifted]

It was not linear, and when the room moved back and the door opened, it was just another representation of a fake personality.

[Raven]

Kailen sighed and walked out the door, looking around the outside space, then he looked at the remote again. He'd assumed the power button was how he got back to the real office, but that was probably something that wouldn't be given to him. He hoped. With a final glance around, Kailen pressed they power button.

[Gifted]

Lights in each room started going out. as he watched, each nearby room got dark, closer and closer until he too was plunged into darkness.
When they came back up, the moving, shifting rooms had all gone. Kailen was now standing in a single, incredibly spacious, white room.
And it was a total wreck.
Faded, peeling wallpaper hung in scraps on the wall, moldy and old and falling off despite the bright, spotless white underneath. Wood and other bis of destroyed furniture lay all over the ground, and slivers of glass and another painfully familiar shiny material hurt his feet as he stepped through them and towards the shelves.
There were hundreds of shelves in here, all with faces. every face he'd seen on shelves in the other rooms was there plus hundreds more from her past, like kids from highschool that Stephanie had hung out with to take advantage of their parents - a rich kid connected to his dad connected to a sister, and then in another direction connected to an old man in a lab coat was just one pattern on those older shelves. They were the only thing in the room that was standing, and they were painted as gleaming white as the rest. The only other piece of furniture was a couch with holes in it, painted white but with paint hat was cracking, a couch that had once been another colour before someone had crudely tried to change it.

[Raven]

Kailen tried to take the least painful route through the room, looking around at first, and then looking for a way out. Was this going to be effective at all?

[Gifted]

"You're not having much luck, are you?" Stephanie was standing behind him, arms crossed, watching him.

[Raven]

Kailen spun around, standing in shocked silence for a moment before answering. "I've never had much luck understanding you. Want to help me out?"